EVENTS

Sometimes, a song is just what you need, even if you have no idea why. I went out to walk the Cuttledog–it is record-breaking heat today, and every movement is taxing–and the first song on the randomized iPod was this:(warning: Swedish rock music after the jump): [Read more…]

My God is just and wrathful;
I fear the day we meet.
He’ll judge my sins and trespasses
From his almighty seat
I’d try to beat the system
But His system can’t be beat—
So while sometimes I am tempted
I will never, ever cheat.

My god is kind and loving
And forgiving of our sins;
In our quest to find salvation
He knows everybody wins
In school, when tests are handed out
He knows my head just spins
So my eyes are on my neighbor’s test
As soon as it begins.

With all the Bulgarian skeleton news, I cannot neglect my beloved Greece.

Greeks will cast their lot Sunday in a parliamentary election that could determine the country’s future in the euro zone — and potentially the future of the euro zone itself. Now including 17 nations, the European Monetary Union is one of the continent’s main modern-day political projects. There is no precedent or procedure for a country leaving, and the predictions about what might occur in the aftermath range from global financial meltdown to a mild bump on the road to recovery.

In lighter news, Greece did defeat Russia in Euro 2012, to reach the quarter-finals. A few bad calls going each direction–it could have gone either way–but I’ll take it.

Credulity strains
As the expert explains
That the human remains they have found
Are the bones of a saint,
Which I think is just quaint–
You can’t prove that they ain’t, they expound.

In a similar search
Through the yard of a church
Come some bones that may smirch someone’s name
Searchers saw, with a start
There’s a stake through his heart!
That’s a posthumous part of his shame [Read more…]

What she said was so offensive
We must ban her from the floor!
We can’t use that sort of language
In the State House any more!
It displays her immaturity—
She’s perfectly aware
That the proper designation
Is the whispered “ummm… down there” [Read more…]

Aan posted comic strips. Comic strips. Ok, and a few articles. And for this…

“Under the Electronic Information and Transactions law, we sentence him to prison for a length of two years and six months,” Dharma said.

“What he did has caused anxiety to the community and tarnished Islam.”

Aan was beaten by an angry mob and arrested by police in his hometown of Pulau Punjung in western Sumatra in January after posting the material online and declaring himself an atheist.

The court had earlier indicted Aan with two other charges — persuading others to embrace atheism and blasphemy — and prosecutors had sought a three-and-a-half-year jail term for him.

But the court convicted him of the most serious charge and dropped the other two.

Ah… leniency.

This is freedom of religion without freedom from religion.

Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, guarantees freedom of religion in its constitution and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, but only recognizes six faiths: Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Catholicism, Protestantism and Confucianism.

Its courts have in recent years given light sentences to perpetrators of violent attacks on Christians and Islamic minority Ahmadis, some of which have been fatal.

(wow, even this news story omits atheists in this last sentence.) This is, I think, the model that the Tea Party wants for the US.